1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an intake manifold and cylinder head for an internal combustion engine, and more specifically to a sealing system for use between an intake manifold mounting flange and a cylinder head of the engine. The present invention is equally applicable for sealing an upper intake of an engine to a lower intake.
2. Related Art
Intake manifolds are typically mounted to the cylinder heads of internal combustion engines with detailed gasketing intended to prevent not only leaks of outside air into the engine's cylinders, but also to prevent pressure pulses in one intake runner from interacting with the pressure pulses in an adjacent intake runner. Although external leaks may adversely impact engine control because an external vacuum leak will likely cause unmetered air to be introduced into the engine's cylinders, thereby disturbing the air/fuel control, unwanted cross-talk between adjacent cylinder runners may very well upset the tuning of the engine, causing an undesirable decrement in power output. In most engines, the undesirable cross-talk between adjacent cylinder runners is prevented by causing the gasketing material provided between an intake manifold mounting flange and a cylinder head to extend between adjacent ones of the manifold runners. Unfortunately, this use of material merely for the purpose of preventing cross-talk between adjacent cylinders is costly and adds to the complexity of the gasket design. Moreover, this issue exists with other induction system joints, such as the joint between an upper intake manifold and a lower intake manifold.
It would be desirable to provide a sealing system between an intake manifold mounting flange and a cylinder head, or lower intake, which does not rely upon added gasketing material, but rather is incorporated into the basic design of the engine components themselves.